Rock covers band from the North, covering 5 decades of musical aceness

Will

Will Gould’s other job is a lecturer in History at the University of Leeds. He spends a good amount of time in India doing research, but in his spare moments also works as a trustee for Scoala Pentru Viata/School for Life Romania. He is married to the lovely Olivia and they have a son, Dylan who regularly demands Will plays all of his guitars one by one (and sometimes simultaneously). Dylan, being a fine connoisseur of great music is obviously a huge fan of the ‘bulbs.

Will’s first instrument was actually the piano, which he learned formally from age of 5 to 18. His guitar playing goes way back to primary school, where he was forced to play arpeggios in a multi-part performance of Greensleeves. But the serious business of electric guitar kicked off when he was 14, and was revisited, strangely, in his mid 30s… His first band was during Sixth Form at School, named The Great Cwmbran Shopping Experience (or GCSE for the kids), which used to pump out all that was cool in 1988 – influenced by The Wonderstuff, The Smiths, Billy Bragg, The Cult, The Cure, The House of Love. It featured the famous Nick Asbury on bass and piano/occasional guitar too. GCSE once played in the same venue as The Primitives, and although the lead singer looked nothing like Tracy Tracy.

Will’s Gear

The Junior

Will’s no. 1 guitar, a Gibson Les Paul Junior. Time warp back to 1956, then put that tasty P90 through a dimed Vox, and hey presto! One of the signature sounds of Lightbulb Moment. Junior is not polite, he’s not big, but he’s very clever.

The PM

Will uses a Gibson ES335 for some songs, especially those involving slide, like ‘Three Women’.

The ‘umble tele

This is the Fender Special Telecaster for those Jeff Buckley moments. Whenever he picks up the tele, Will has been known to let out a long ‘ahhhh’ sound.

The Lazy Lester

Sometimes Will seems to have more guitars than he knows what to do with. Here is an example – the lazy Lester which is used for No One Knows but which generally improved the tonez while looking pretty propped up against a wall.

Marvin

He might not be the size of a planet, but he certainly weighs in like one. Will’s Vox AC30 punches out the Lightbulbs’ guitar sounds, running the gamut from 1963 to 2012.

Will’s pedals

The guitarist for Lightbulb Moment is particularly attracted to pedals with shiny colourful casings, nice lights and intriguing names. And so, in any ‘bulbs gig, you may hear a Mad Professor Ruby Booster, a Spark Boost, a Wampler plexi drive, a Big Muff, a Bad Monkey, and errm… a Boss D4 digital delay and EQ.